LIFO Repeal in Presidential Budget

Below is an alert to all LIFO Coalition members (HARDI is a member) signaling that efforts to repeal LIFO are on the way.

TO: LIFO Coalition memnbers
FR: Jade West, NAW Sr. VP, Government Affairs
RE: LIFO repeal in the Obama budget


Early alert:

President Obama sent his fiscal year 2010 budget to Congress this morning. LIFO repeal is included in the (hundreds of billion of dollars of) tax increases in his budget.

Unlike the usual Presidential budget, this document is very brief (140 pages versus many hundreds) and is more of a narrative than a budget. LIFO repeal appears ONLY in a table of tax revenues. The revenue “score” on repeal is $61.2 billion starting in 2012. That score is clearly different from the $105 billion that the Joint Tax Committee reported in the Rangel “mother of all tax reform” proposal for full repeal.

Since the budget includes no explanatory material, we do not yet know the details of the repeal proposal. We are in the process of trying to get that information, and will let you know as soon as we learn more.

For those of you who don’t normally follow the federal budget process: The President is required to submit a budget to Congress in February. Congress does NOT act on that budget. Once Congress receives the President’s budget, the House and Senate Budget Committees begin work on their own budget resolutions; it is the Congressional budget resolutions that will eventually be voted on by Congress. It will be several weeks before the Budget Committees report their budgets to the House and Senate for consideration.
We therefore have time to ensure that everyone who cares about LIFO repeal communicates in the strongest possible terms the impact of repeal to every Member of the House and Senate, starting with the Members of the Budget Committees.